Bernie Inspired a New Generation of Activists. Now What?

PHILADELPHIA—Miles Fidelman is sitting on some pretty pricey real estate.

He declines to confirm if he's been approached by the Sanders campaign about selling, but it's a reasonable guess that he has.

Last February, Fidelman did some land speculation. For what by 2016 standards seems like pocket change, Fidelman snapped up the domain names politicalrevolution.net, politicalrevolution.com and politicalrevolution.org. As Bernie Sanders ponders the next move for his Political Revolution, those are pretty attractive addresses.

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But Fidelman isn't selling. In Sanders' "bottom on up" campaign of change, Fidelman was in the sub-basement. Knocking on doors. Making phone calls. Doing his part. And if anybody thinks he's going to simply turn over his platform to the guys at the top, they're sadly mistaken. This is his revolution, too, after all.

A specialist in telecommunications programming, Fidelman has an interdisciplinary degree from MIT in electrical engineering, computer science, and cognitive psychology. He's made a career working in systems architecture, both with the federal government and community-oriented concerns. Back in the 1990s, Fidelman was co-founder and president of the Center for Civic Networking, a non-profit promoting the use of information technology for community economic development and political participation that the Clinton White House once quoted in a policy paper. Now he works with intelligent transportation systems, and provides web hosting services to local non-profits in his area.

And he has this website.

Of the three domain names, Fidelman chose to go live with politicalrevolution.net. "It's branding," Fidelman explained from a seat in a coffee shop in Newtonville, Massachusetts, a few weeks ago. Revolutions, after all, are nothing but networks of people. "Network is the organizational paradigm for the 21st century," he continued.

GettySpencer Platt

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"The current generation doesn't know how to organize," Fidelman said. But they do understand the Internet. What if he could provide an Internet tool which would be truly interactive, providing not only news and information, but serving as a recruiting station and organizing hub for the Political Revolution?

One of the "potent legacies" of the Sanders campaign, Fidelman said, is "all these local groups that have sprung up, 98 percent of them self-organizing. But without central organization they're missing campaign tools, communications, volunteer coordination." The Internet hub can substitute for traditional central organization, and refocus energy now that Hillary Clinton is the nominee.

"Bernie was very successful in organizing people on a focal point," Fidelman explained. "I'm trying to build a network of organizers."

"I got six donors," he said [actually, it was seven.] "I'm doing something wrong, obviously."

Fidelman's doing a bit of place-holding now, posting his own blog on politicalrevolution.net. It's not something he's entirely comfortable with. "The blogging phenomenon sets people up on their own soapbox. How you really engage people in a discussion that leads people to action is really hard."

"The current generation doesn't know how to organize."

Fidelman hopes that Sanders supporters will recognize what Tea Party members did, and that revolution from within is truly transformative. "My thought about strategy this fall is that everybody has to show up to vote. You have to show up and vote the Democratic ticket." Any other vote is a "wasted" vote. "Jill Stein has no chance of winning, and a vote for her is increasing the chance that Trump ends up in office. On the other hand, to the extent that Bernie voters support Hillary, and support Democrats for Congress, Bernie potentially ends up with a powerful chairmanship in a Democratic Senate."

And money does talk. "Don't give money to anything that begins without Democrat, but make it Democrats who act independent of the Party. Make it real clear that we may all vote Democratic, but we're not voting Democratic Establishment," he continued. "The Tea Party doesn't give money to the Republican Party. They give money to the Tea Party."

What disaffected Sanders supporters need to understand, Fidelman thinks, is that a Clinton victory, a Democratic Party victory, empowers the Revolution from within. "You see the Senate shift, and you see Bernie introducing legislation in a Democratic Congress and millions of people show up."

Unbroken and unbowed, he has brought his domain and smart phone to Philadelphia this week. He's throwing wide the doors to politicalrevolution.net., inviting everyone in.